question re HbA1c

[Newtothis]

I had my blood test last week for my 2nd HbA1c and have my appointment next Thursday; have had some good readings this week - would an extra week have made a big difference or is it worth having a blood test just a week before the appointment?

Amanda🙂

 

[Northerner]

It's very unlikely that a week's readings will make that much difference to an HbA1c, unless they are very radically different from usual. You will be taking little snapshots with your fingerprick tests, but these will be just snapshots of how your blood sugar is over the 24 hours of each day. I doubt your control has made such a hige improvement since the blood was taken - it was pretty good before this week! 🙂

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

One or two errant readings would not make too much difference I think. If you'd had a whole nightmare week/fortnight just before that might have had some effect as the test is weighted slightly towards the weeks immediately before it (not all blood cells last 120 days , so some of the blood cells from earlier weeks will have died and therefore not show the information from way back so strongly)

 

[GlucoseGary]

By a quick bit of mental arithmetic, the most recent week contributes about 15% of your HbA1c result. How much lower is it likely to be?

If 13 weeks like this last week would be, say, 2.1 better than the 13 weeks that you've already had measured, and if they were all much the same as each other, that would imply you'd see a drop of HbA1c of 0.3 or thereabouts.

But if you did see that drop... what would you gain by it? Would your doctor/nurse treat you differently? Would you behave differently, or will you in any case strive to carry on with the behaviour which has seen your daily numbers drop?

Ultimately it's information for you and your HCP, it's not an end in itself, or a score of how good a person you are - which is clearly very 😉